It Takes Time
by Artisiano
Summary: When a violent storm leaves Denmark blind, with Sweden and Finland caring for an ill Sealand and Iceland too far away to help it becomes the grudging duty of Norway to care for him until his sight returns. (Human names used) (ONESHOT) (T for Denmark's mouth and panic attack)


The last thing I want to be doing is digging through Matias' things looking for a book he "borrowed" from Iceland but which actually belongs to me. I have no idea what he wanted with a book of Norwegian fairy tales, but to each his own. It's been years since we broke up, but we still avoid each other like the plague and only ever talk when we have to, like at world meetings. As soon as I arrived, though I sent word I was coming so it wouldn't be entirely by surprise, Mathias let me in and then promptly left the house, heading somewhere into the woods. I can understand why though, when we fell apart it was far from neat, and it's still much too recent in both our minds for him to react to my randomly coming over in any other way. I glance up at the sky through one of the frosty bay windows in his living room and note the darkened sun, hidden behind grey clouds heavy with a looming snowstorm. I had hoped to find my book and be on my way before the storm rolled in, but it looks like now I won't have a choice but to be snowed in. I turn from the window just as the first flakes fall, light at first, but then growing in intensity as a roar of thunder shakes the old house like an earthquake and rattles the windows. Not long after the wind starts howling outside, screaming between the trees, driving the snow against the glass so fast and so hard that it takes only a moment before the bottom of the panes are completely covered. I cease my search and go around the house, closing any windows I found open and locking them all, then settled in to wait out the storm. As it worsens I grow increasingly worried when no Dane appears at the door, even as the storm turns into a blizzard. As angry and hurt as I am towards him, if he's injured or lost out there somewhere, so few people live this far inland that it could well be days before anyone found him.

In this weather I know I can't go out to look for him, what use would it be for me to get lost or hurt as well? I keep watching through the top of the bay window, protected as it is by Matias' covered porch and wait to see if he comes back, and if not, for when the storm abates enough that I can safely look for him. It takes about two hours to lessen to the point where I can go and look for him, and that is exactly what I do. I pull a heavy parka from the closet and put on a pair of snowshoes, then flip up the fur lined hood and pull on woolen mittens before heading out. I have to shove the door with all of my strength because so much snow has piled up against it, and although I tried to stop it, his front hall was covered in an avalanche. I closed the door behind me and made my way away from the relative safety of the porch to begin my trek. Years ago, when we were still together he and I cut a trail through the underbrush that meandered through the woods and then looped back on itself. Mathias most likely took this path, it's a relatively easy trail and really doesn't require a lot of work to make it passable, just clearing any branches that fall over the seasons, so I followed it. When the tree cover above became particularly thick and the amount of snow on the ground lessened somewhat I caught sight of barely visible footprints and started following them as closely and carefully as I could, stopping every now and then to relocate them because of thinner branches and still more snowfall. I followed this path for I don't know how long and was about to double back and follow one of the deer trails branching off our man-made one when I saw an odd mound of snow ahead of me. I know this path like the back of my hand, it was one of my favorites to walk in early spring and there was nothing that would cause piles of snow like this, we made sure of that when we cut it. I approached the mound and started brushing snow away, trying to figure out exactly what it was; it wasn't long before I came across golden hair and pale skin beneath the cover. I began brushing as fast as I was safely able to, and while doing so my hand hit something hard, a branch that had been ripped from its tree by the violent wind. Immediately I carefully lifted the branch and threw it somewhere behind me in the woods and started digging out Mathias, trying not to move him too much in case that branch did more than just knock him out. As soon as he was relatively unburied I checked him over for injuries that I could potentially exacerbate if I tried to move him, and finding none save for a nasty concussion, I picked him up and did my best to put him on my back and head to the house.

When we arrived the first thing I did without even bothering to take off my snowshoes was put Mathias on the chesterfield and stoke the fire, wrapping him in a quilt I stole off his bed and cushioning his head. After depositing the snowshoes by the door I went back to the couch and started trying to thaw his too cold hands and feet in basins of cold to lukewarm water and wake him up. He eventually came around, and the first thing I noticed was his expression, a little fearful and more than a bit confused.

"Hello? Is there somebody there? Where am I?" He tried to glance around, and practically jumped when I stopped him from moving his head or getting up. "Who's there? Answer me dammit!"

"Danmark, It's just me. I found you in the woods, out cold in more ways than one."

"Norge? I… Where are you, and why is the house so dim? Did we lose power?" He tried to move again, and again I stopped him.

"I'm right in front of you, and what do you mean the house is dim? It's true that the power went out but the fire's going and it's still daylight outside, there's plenty of light."

Matias looked scared then, an expression that didn't belong on his face or in his bearing, he never showed fear, especially around me and Iceland. "I… I can't see you, just a vaguely human-shaped shadow, everything else is hazy. What's going on? What happened to me?"

"Mathias…" was my only reply. I knew what happened, the branch must have hit him in just the wrong place and left him at least semi blind. I didn't want to tell him, if he was scared now I don't know what he would do if he knew exactly what I thought happened.

"Just… stay there, don't try to move, you have a concussion and trying to move will only make it worse. I'm not going far, just getting more blankets, you're as cold as death."

I got up then, trying to make it obvious to Mathias where I was in the room and what I was doing, then came back with the promised blankets and spread them over him, as well as some bandages, painkillers and an ice pack from the freezer. I made him take painkillers, even if he protested and claimed he didn't need them, then started binding his head, cleaning the concussion in case there was broken skin I couldn't see past his sopping wet hair and doing all I could to keep him awake.

"A bit late for a storm like this, it's almost spring for you. Have you been getting unpredictable weather like this a lot recently?" It's a dumb question, I know, but I needed something to keep him conscious.

"Why the hell are you talking about the weather like we're at a meeting or some shit! Shouldn't you be paying attention to the more immediate problem here?" He glared in the general direction my voice had come from.

"Work with me here Danmark. You know as well as I do that you have to stay awake, at least until I'm certain you can sleep safely, and if that means smalltalk then I'll damn well smalltalk you."

"Fine," he sounded like a petulant child, "smalltalk it is. I have noticed that I've been getting odd weather like this. Just a few weeks ago I got out of a deep freeze and into a melt, and then this storm. Have you been getting any odd weather at your place?"

I was silent for a moment, long enough for Mathias to ask if I was still there, "I- yeah, I'm still here. I haven't gotten any particularly odd or out of place weather yet, but there's still a lot left of winter for me, so who knows."

"Hm" was his only response, then he looked down at his lap, focusing blindly on his hand like he was hoping he could force himself to see by looking at something hard enough. After a brief moment, he glanced up at me, or at least where he thought I was and said something in a soft, almost broken tone I hope to never hear from him again:

"Do you think I'll be stuck like this forever?"

The worry in his blind eyes didn't belong there, much like the fear. In all my years knowing him, and then loving him, he never once openly showed fear or worry, even to me after we became a couple and let our guard down around each other. He was -and in many ways still is- the most visibly emotional of all five of us Nordics, perhaps even more so than Finland, but he never truly wore his heart on his sleeve, he hid negative emotions, oftentimes so well I wondered if he really had any. If he was ever scared or unsure he never let us see, always keeping up a boisterous, happy, sometimes even arrogant personality around us, wanting us to see him as our brave big brother who could protect us from anything, no matter what it took out of him. Seeing him like this, blind and scared, I don't like it, even after everything that happened between us I can't put the image of the fearless Dane I grew up with next to the broken man in front of me. With that in mind, I didn't know how to answer Mathias, and I kept silent save for letting him know I was coming around his left and settling in an old, overstuffed armchair next to the chesterfield.

After a few more hours of idle chatting, really just more smalltalk, I judge it safe enough to let Mathias sleep, but I would still have to watch him and wake him up every couple of hours to make sure he wasn't deteriorating and could still be woken easily. I set him up on the chesterfield and poked another log onto the fire in hopes of warming up the drafty house, then pulled a candle from an end table, lit it and settled into an armchair, reading my book of fairy tales by the flame. I checked the analogue clock on Mathias' mantlepiece and marked the time, then turned my attention back to my book. As I flipped a page and began reading a specific tale, my mind was forced back into the past, back to when we would tell these fairy tales to Iceland, Faroe, Greenland and the others when they were little more than children, still relying wholly on us for their everything. We would take turns reading to them, even when we had been fighting earlier because they were more important than our petty squabbles. We fought, even then, long before we became a couple, most of the time over stupid things; Matias was always so brash and boisterous, and I was always too quiet and guarded, we'd clash a lot over that. After we'd cooled off somewhat though we would go back to our usual semi-closeness, regardless of what we'd said to each other.

After we became a couple we were fine for a long time, long enough for Iceland to grow up and fly the nest, and for the others to mature enough that they didn't need to be around us at all times, and then the fights got worse. Simple disagreements could turn into venomous spitting matches, jokes taken wrong could turn into days without speaking to each other, and try as we might to keep fights behind closed doors sometimes the children would see, which only served to make things worse. Eventually after a particularly nasty fight a few years ago we split up, it was getting too much for both of us, and we both had independent nations and colonies to run that we couldn't afford to put into jeopardy because we ourselves couldn't get along. Since then we've spent the years hardly speaking to each other unless we had no other choice, the hurt is still too fresh in our minds and hearts to be really on speaking terms with each other and I can't really blame either of us. I suppose that's part of the reason why I wanted to be gone before the storm blew in, so I wouldn't have to deal with Matias hardly speaking to me, but clearly fate had other plans.

I wrench myself back into the present and wake him up again after checking the time on the mantle, he's once again easy to wake, and the critical time for internal bleeding has passed so I'm certain there's no more potential damage I have to deal with. As I make to head to the kitchen to start making supper for us, I feel him blindly stop me, and when I turn to him he's wearing a poker face, something I rarely see on him and that completely doesn't suit him.

"Lukas? I- I can't see anything now, not even shapes or shadows, just blackness." He says it so matter of factly, like he's commenting on the time of day, but I know him better.

Underneath his poker facade he's tense, the way he absently rubs the fingers of his right hand together and taps his foot belie his worry, and the barely contained tremble in his voice and the use of my human name signals exactly what I didn't want to see in him, vulnerability.

"Let me see your eyes." I kneel in front of him, turning his face towards me so I could clearly see his eyes. What I saw was a blank ocean of blue, no focus, no pupil dilation even when I waved my hand, he truly could not see, not even shapes.

I lean back and push myself up with a sigh, glancing towards the window as the wind outside picks up again. I can't do anything for him and sitting here looming over him -especially when he can't see- is doing him no favours. Something tells me Matias is aware of that fact, because when I step away he doesn't try and stop me, or even say anything to me, he just sits there blindly watching the fire. A bang and a scraping sound above me causes me to jump, and a quick inhale from Matias brings my attention back to him. He's tenser than before, not even rubbing his fingers anymore, dead silent and still as a statue, save for rapid breaths. Though it has been years since I last saw this, I recognise the beginnings of a panic attack when I see it, however hard he tries to mask it from me. It's been so long I hardly remember the last time he had one or what sparked it, but what I do remember is what I did to help him through it. I return to his side wordlessly, let him know I'm there and then coax his hands apart, taking one of his in both of my own. He squeezes me hard, and although it hurts I don't pull my hand away, he needed something to ground himself and if my hands served that purpose then I wouldn't try to stop him. Then I tell him quietly to focus entirely on me and rub gentle circles on the back of his hand with one of my thumbs, reciting a rhyme we taught the children many years ago to him. It takes about five to eight minutes to calm him, and when I feel him release the pressure on my hand I let go of him and move slightly away, close enough that he knows I'm there but not so close that I'm touching him. Then I just watch him carefully, waiting for the telltale signs that he's calm again. It doesn't take long for him to relax again, and when he does I get up to go to the kitchen and make something for him. About the only thing he has that could help is old chamomile tea I got ages ago when we were still together to help soothe Greenland after one of her nightmares; I don't know if it'll work still considering its age, but I make some either way, then bring it back to him.

Leaving Matias with his tea I start heading back to the kitchen to see about making us food, but again he blindly stops me. Looking at him it becomes obvious to me he's asking for me to stay without actually saying so, his pride not allowing him to despite the circumstances. I know I can't leave him like this, especially when the storm outside is gearing up for another wallop so I spread his quilt over the both of us and settle down with him. It's awkward at first, perhaps more so for me because even though he's like this I can neither forgive nor forget the things he said when we broke up, and at first I'm as tense as he is. Gradually though I found myself drifting into the memory of the last time we were together like this, wrapped in a blanket. We were a couple by then, and we had the house to ourselves for a few days because the children were with Finland and Sweden. A sudden blizzard blew in and buried us, one of the short ones that lasts for only a few hours but dumps days worth of snow, we completely lost power and no one below could get up to us for several days because the roads were completely snowed over. We spent those several days reading from our favorite books, cooking together and talking, just talking, not even really about anything in particular while temperatures outside plummeted. Even after we broke up I've treasured that memory, trapped inside with just each other while wind blew ever more snow on top of us.

Matias shifted next to me, "Norge?" he glanced towards me momentarily, like he wanted to say something, then quickly back to the fire. "Nevermind."

I hesitated for a moment, then: "No, say whatever you wanted to say. It's too quiet in here anyway."

"Do you remember the last time we were like this? That blizzard in March that snowed us in for days?"

"I- Yes, I do. Why?" He couldn't possibly have known that was what I was thinking about.

"It was nice, wasn't it. House to ourselves for a few days, no colonies or visitors, nothing but a thick blanket of white as far as the eye could see." He gave a laugh, "Remember how frantic Faroe was to get to us when the roads finally cleared?"

"And how Greenland cried when she saw that we were safe." I stared at the fire, watching the flames dance behind the grate. "Iceland acted like he didn't care, remember that?"

"Yeah, but we both knew he was maybe more worried than the other two." Matias smiled, looking back towards the fire.

I hid a smile as well, even though I knew he couldn't see me. I remembered it well, we woke up one morning about two days after the blizzard to see a frantic Faroe madly trying to dig us out, with little Greenland -too young to do anything to help- right behind him, all wrapped up in her parka and already crying. Iceland was standing nearby, watching us through a window with his usual stoic glare on his face, almost like he was shaming us for being trapped. When Faroe finally managed to dig us out, Greenland bombed past him and practically jumped on us, bawling her eyes out like we'd come back from the dead. Faroe and Iceland followed her in, and Faroe just went and hugged us while Iceland stayed off to the side, not really looking like he cared at all. We were still without power for a few days even after the roads were cleared, and we all ended up gathering around our big fireplace, reading aloud to each other while Matias stoked the flames until they roared. By the time the power came back on, we'd exhausted our bookshelves and it felt almost normal again, living like we used to before electricity came up the mountains to us. I think no matter how many years pass or what happens in the interim that memory, first having the house to myself with Matias, and then all of us together with no modern distractions for days will always be one of my favorites.

At length I realise Matias has fallen silent, leaving the house eerily quiet save for the howling of the wind outside and in the chimney flue. I look over to him, fully expecting him to be asleep again only to find him watching the fire with an almost pensive look on his face, like a seraph in an old painting. I turn my attention back to the fire, trying to distract myself from the unnatural silence that pervaded the room. When he finally does speak, he takes me entirely by surprise:

"Norge?" He doesn't look away from the fire, refusing to meet my eyes, "I… you didn't have to stay and take care of me; I don't deserve it, not after what I said when we fought, not after how I acted," he paused for a moment, as if unsure of what to say next, then: "and… I know it makes no difference now because what's done is done, I can't take back the cruel things I said or the names I called you, and I can hardly expect you to forgive me for it, but I truly apologise. I never should have stooped that low. I never should have left the way I did, regardless of how angry I was and I regret every second of it."

I'm struck silent, he's never apologised like this before, no matter how many times we'd fight or what we said to each other; I always thought he was too prideful to admit when he was wrong, yet here he is placing the blame wholly on himself. I don't answer him at first, too busy processing what he'd said, nor does he press me for one either, he just returns his attention fully to the flames. I don't know how long I was quiet for, analysing his words and searching for a forked tongue, but eventually I reply, slowly and choosing my words carefully.

"Matias, you're right, there is no taking back what was said, but," I hesitate, deciding what to say, "it wasn't just you. We both said vile, cruel things to each other, we both did things we regret and I should be apologising for my part. The blame belongs to and falls upon both of us, but in the end what really matters is we truly regret what we did and said, not who's fault it was."

Matias looks instantly relieved, letting a breath out I didn't realise he was holding. He doesn't need to say anything for me to know he's grateful I accepted his apology, instead he just pulls the blanket closer around us both, pinning one of the corners under his leg. We sit like this for almost an hour, my mind running a thousand miles a second, distracted both by his apology and the storm whaling against the sides of the house. After a while I realise there's no sound from the Dane next to me, and a heavy weight leans against my side, so I decided to take this opportunity to make something for us and let him sleep. Gently I get up and ease Matias down on the chesterfield, laying another pillow under his head and spreading the blanket over him, then stoke the fire a bit before heading to the kitchen. I putter around making something relatively quick and filling as quietly as I can, keeping half an eye on Matias as I do in case something happens or if he wakes up and starts panicking again. As I leaned back against the counter watching him, my mind finally settled down enough for me to think straight and I came to the (albeit delayed) realisation that as much as I can't forget what happened between us, I can perhaps forgive it. For the longest time I couldn't though, not only because he had hurt me so deeply but because when we fought the children saw every moment of it, and when he left they had to watch him go; I was left to pick up the pieces of them alone, and I worry to this day that I failed in that duty and irreparably damaged them. I hated Mathias for years afterward, and maybe part of me still does even after his apology, but I think now -though I can't ever forget- I can't truly hate him, not anymore. Enough time has passed for us both to think on what happened, how we both went wrong and how we should have handled it better, both in terms of ourselves and the children.

After coming to that decision, I smell a slight burning smell and realise I've not been paying attention to dinner. Quickly taking it from the oven and hoping that I got it out before it burned too much, I set it aside to cool and set the table, then wake Matias up. He takes a few minutes to wake up, groggy and a little dazed from sleep but otherwise fine. I help him down the two steps leading to the depressed dining room and set him up in a chair, then serve us both. It's a relatively quiet and uneventful dinner, after our apologies I think neither one of us really knows what else to say, everything has already been said. The chime of the clock on the mantlepiece forces me out of my thoughts and I become aware that the house is silent, the wind outside has stopped howling and a dim sunset filters in through the half-buried windows, glinting off the edge of the snow packed against it. Getting up, I tell Matias the storm has ended and do my best to describe what I'm seeing as we stand by the front window, the awning above the patio sparing it the worst of the snow. The sun, just peeking out from behind heavy, dark clouds receding eastward glitters off the ground like diamonds and refracts through ice hanging from tree branches in every colour. The forest next to the house lies almost entirely in a deepening twilight, the once familiar path unrecognisable under layers of snow and shadow and a branch, blown down by the wind or torn from the tree by snow weight leans haphazardly against the side of the house, half on the roof and about ready to fall at any moment.

I send Mathias back inside and put on a parka, then spend some time digging around in the closet by the door for a hatchet to bring down the branch and a shovel to clear the drive. As I head back out and start working I am once again consumed by Mathias and my thoughts regarding him. It's clear we both regret what we did and said, we've already apologised and forgiven each other for it but it feels like there's still something more we could be doing. When I successfully bring the branch down and start cutting it into firewood it finally hits me, that something more goes beyond forgiveness and into redemption, both on my part and his, and that will take time. It's plain from this little episode that there's still chemistry, there's still a certain amount of affection between us, stained as it is by hurt. Mathias is right, I didn't have to stay to look after him and yet I did, that alone proves there's something there still. I don't know about Mathias, but in my heart I know that I'm not ready to take him back yet, if ever, though if anything remains of our relationship at all, I'm willing to give friendship a chance and see where things go from there. After all, we've already hit rock bottom with each other, what other direction is there to go but up?

Fin


End file.
